Deep Purple – inFinite

With over 50 years and countless concerts on their backs, as well as 20 studio albums, Deep Purple are a living legend for the extreme sound. With the last album titled Infinite, which means unending, and the supporting tour entitled “The Long Goodbye” Tour, the British rockers remind us of their phlegmatic origin and may tell us with slim sarcasm and irony that the end has arrived. Or maybe the opposite too! With a contradiction regarding their future, Purple went to the same studio in Nashville, Tennessee that had recorded their previous album, “Now What?”, with the same producer – another living legend, Bob Ezrin – creating yet another exquisite record worthy of their name. The successor of ‘Now What ?!’ was remarkably commercial and artistic. Especially commercial, since in 6 months it became gold in Germany and was the first album after 1993 and “The Battle Rages On …” that entered the UK top 40 albums charts. Although it will be difficult to make the same sales in music, “Infinite” is far superior to its predecessor. With more progressive elements, a warm, analogue sound made out of the 70’s and without any sounding nostalgic, 3/5 of MK II once again give their credentials to their crowd. This mixture of blues with prog alchemies seem dreamlike especially when it comes to Don Airey’s dominating keys and Morse’s solos completely co-working, while Gillan flirts with their metal audience, generously giving out his mature and extraordinary for the band, sharp vocals. The main success of the album is, and rather it is due to Ezrin, that it revives the Lord / Blackmore dipole and the years of crossing their talents as another skill show off. This time Airey / Morse gives us some of their best ideas, with really progressive points – not exercises for fingertips on the fretboard or masturbation on keyboards – and on them Gillan easily unfolds his wonderful voice. Yes it still sounds great! ‘Time for Bedlam’, ‘One Night in Vegas’, ‘Surprising’ and the melancholic ‘All I Got Is You’ stand out for sure. There is also a really interesting cover of the legendary Roadhouse Blues by The Doors. I’m afraid Purple follow the fate of modern classicals such as Umberto Eco. Almost everyone knows Name of the Rose or Foucault’s Pendulum, many have read or copied it (Dan Brown …), few have it and especially the older generations, while few have probably read his last work. Similarly, almost everyone knows ‘Smoke on the Water’, many have heard it, especially older ones definitely have it in their collection and few follow their latest work such as ‘Infinite’. It is a pity because ‘Pape Satan Aleppe’*, although it is a collection of articles published in L Espresso magazine since 2000, is a particularly interesting book, as particularly interesting as ‘Infinite’. But I think we did not make clear whether or not if this is the swan song of Deep Purple, but does that really matter? Strictly …

4,5/6

“Pape Satan, Pape Satan Aleppe,” said Dante Aligeri in the 7th circle of Hell, from the Divine Comedy, between admiration, pain, anger, threats, and perhaps irony.